FCW on Win 11 console, washed out colors.

[Dirk]

FCW colors in Win 11 console are washed out in the file panels but also
syntax highlighting in the editor looks awful.

See Win 10 and Win 11 screenshots to compare.

Has anyone found a solution for this?

Dirk

[xhajt03]

Wed 10. 12. 2025 at 11:58 Dirk <dirk.st...@gmail.com> wrote:


Hello Dirk,

First, I assume that you already tried modifying the colours using
Options -> Colours and saved the ini file afterwards using Shift-F9 or
Options -> Save setup? Second, you should make sure that you either
start fcw.exe in the directory where your fcw.ini is stored (e.g.
using the shortcut specifying the start directory, or within fcw.cmd
if you prefer starting FC/W from the command line), or that you
specify fcw.ini location as a parameter.

And to answer your question explicitly - yes, my FC/W colours are more
resembling those from your first picture than those from your second
picture. Those on the second picture seem to be the default ones if
FC/W doesn't find an ini file on its start.

Tomas

[Dirk]

On 10-12-2025 12:30, xhajt03 wrote:
>
> First, I assume that you already tried modifying the colours using
> Options -> Colours and saved the ini file afterwards using Shift-F9
> or Options -> Save setup? Second, you should make sure that you
> either start fcw.exe in the directory where your fcw.ini is stored
> (e.g. using the shortcut specifying the start directory, or within
> fcw.cmd if you prefer starting FC/W from the command line), or that
> you specify fcw.ini location as a parameter.
>
> And to answer your question explicitly - yes, my FC/W colours are
> more resembling those from your first picture than those from your
> second picture. Those on the second picture seem to be the default
> ones if FC/W doesn't find an ini file on its start.

FC is using the fcw.ini for sure. Al defined colours in the [Colours]
section are visible as the colours from fcwsyntax.ini are. It is just
that de colour palette is wrong.

Fixing the console colour palette with a .reg file as with Win10 when
Microsoft changed it in the past did not work.

Where the colours can be made classic in Win11 is terminal but that
thing is unsuitable for FCW.

[xhajt03]

I _do_ have the "classic" colours in FC/W under Win11. If you go to
Properties of the console window and select the Colours tab, you can
check the RGB parameters of the individual colours on the paletter -
e.g. adjust the second colour (dark blue) to 0/0/128. I probably
modified properties of the FC/W shortcut accordingly long time ago
(and kept that shortcut during reinstallations, etc.) and thus forgot
about that. If I start cmd.exe from the start menu and run fcw.exe
from there, it indeed uses a different palette - that's what confused
me.

Tomas

[Dirk]

On 10-12-2025 14:24, xhajt03 wrote:

> I _do_ have the "classic" colours in FC/W under Win11. If you go to
> Properties of the console window and select the Colours tab, you can
> check the RGB parameters of the individual colours on the paletter -
> e.g. adjust the second colour (dark blue) to 0/0/128. I probably
> modified properties of the FC/W shortcut accordingly long time ago
> (and kept that shortcut during reinstallations, etc.) and thus
> forgot about that. If I start cmd.exe from the start menu and run
> fcw.exe from there, it indeed uses a different palette - that's what
> confused me.

Ok, that sound promising. I don't have Win11 here at the moment but will
look at it asap. Thank you.

Dirk

[Dirk]

On 10-12-2025 14:24, xhajt03 wrote:

> I _do_ have the "classic" colours in FC/W under Win11. If you go to
> Properties of the console window and select the Colours tab, you can
> check the RGB parameters of the individual colours on the paletter -
> e.g. adjust the second colour (dark blue) to 0/0/128. I probably
> modified properties of the FC/W shortcut accordingly long time ago
> (and kept that shortcut during reinstallations, etc.) and thus
> forgot about that. If I start cmd.exe from the start menu and run
> fcw.exe from there, it indeed uses a different palette - that's what
> confused me.

For test I installed Win11 in a VM and this works!
Never thought of that.

Again, thanks!

Dirk

[Herrmann Hofer]

Microsoft has a tool called ColorTool. It's not exactly intuitive to handle, but it did the job for me...

[Dirk]

On 12-12-2025 20:32, 'Herrmann Hofer' via File Commander wrote:
> Microsoft has a tool called ColorTool It's not exactly intuitive to

> handle, but it did the job for me...

After learning that de console colour palette is stored in the lnk file
itself I got the "Shell Link (.LNK) Binary File Format" docs from MS and
coming from OS/2 in the past (Am I using FC for about 30 years now?) I
wrote a (Regina) Rexx script to patch .lnk files with the classic colour
palette.

Will test it next Monday at work which is also my last working day, ever.

Someday I might be forced to run Win11 at home if I didn't switch to Linux.

[Herrmann Hofer]

<offtopic>

Well, seems like we're coming from the same (FC/2-) roots at roughly the same timeframe...  😂

FC/2 *was* my Rexx-IDE 😉

</offtopic>

[Dirk]

On 12-12-2025 21:40, 'Herrmann Hofer' via File Commander wrote:
> <offtopic> Well, seems like we're coming from the same (FC/2-) roots
> at roughly the same timeframe... 😂 FC/2 *was* my Rexx-IDE 😉
> </offtopic>

Haha, FC is still my Rexx-IDE. It was me who once added the rexx part to
fcwsyntax.ini.

[snakesa...@gmail.com]

Hi Tomas and Dirk,

I can't seem to select a brighter color in the menu.
What helped me a bit is setting the font of the terminal to bold.
Go to the Properties (top left of the terminal and then rmb), select
Font tab and select Bold fonts (see attachment).

Greetings,
Paul dM

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